Accidental ingestion of poisons and child personality

The personality of 105 children under 5 years of age admitted to Cardiff Hospital was compared with 105 control children by means of a semantic differential test. Poisoning-children were significantly more anxious (P less than 0-008), harder (P less than 0-01), and more active (P less than 0-04) than controls. They also caused more worry (P less than 0-04) and put other than food more ofter in their mouths (P less than 0-002). There were no significant differences in the age of walking, and the ages of becoming clean and dry between cases and controls. However, poisoning-children had significantly more accidents and hospital admissions than did controls. The relevance of these findings, particularly in relation to the important role of family stress, to the aetiology of accidental poisoning in childhood is discussed.